Body Awe, Body Awareness…
Many health and wellness experts extol the extraordinary fitness of professional dancers. All professional performers, athletes, and competitors rely on their bodies to support them on stage. Their professional success depends upon their body’s ability to express their talent. The exceptional performance begins within, however, depends on the external demonstration of their gift.
For a moment, please consider your body’s perspective. Your body is an animate, energetic, and functional machine supporting your mind, emotions, and spirit to make it through your day fulfilling your obligations, taking care of your responsibilities, and enabling your performance of everything you do.
When your professional or personal activities result in compliments, rewards, applause, or simply satisfaction, to whom do you give the credit? If you’re a dancer (or an athlete), your body receives a large amount of appreciation from the rest of you. If you are a professional, a manager, a sole proprietor, spouse, caretaker, teacher or health care worker, you acknowledge your intelligence, your training, your innate ability, your passion for the position—rarely, if ever, do you appreciate your physical self for delivering the results you’re so proud of? Dancers do…
Respect…
Making the body first priority is natural for those whose livelihoods depend on their physicality and ability to deliver a performance on demand. Particularly true regardless of whatever else is going on in their lives emotionally, psychologically, or intellectually. If the kids are sick, the debtors calling, parental criticism, car won’t start, a full moon, whatever…the show must go on…and that depends on their ability, physical ability, to show up. Regardless of personal distractions, their professional commitments rely on their bodies to fulfill them.
While we cannot control the inevitable results of the aging process, we can maintain many of our physical attributes: strength, flexibility, and energy. Certain elements decline with the passage of time; however the rate of decline as well as the amount of decline can be managed providing we pay attention to our bodies.
Spot on….
Dancers’ edge relates directly to dancers’ awareness of what’s going on INSIDE their bodies, as well as what’s going on in their environment. A technique ballet dancers use to orient themselves is called “spotting”. (Ice skaters have adopted this strategy to maintain their relationship to where they are on the ice.) Prior to beginning a spin, the dancer/skater selects a spot on a nearby wall to direct their focus.
A laser stare keeps the dancer’s head in place as their bodies pivot in a tight circle. Just before the body returns to the starting point, the dancer’s head whips around to re-align itself with the body there. The “spotting” allows the dancer to rotate as many times as the choreography dictates. This dual awareness merges the physical self with the intellectual and spiritual self in a perfect internal unity. At the same time, the totality of the person identifies its placement in the room, on the stage, in their environment.
The dancer’s orientation is perfect within their body and in their environment. The audience observes this unity with respect bordering on awe, because of the perfection visible in the performance.
“Happy feet” refers to every aspect of your body…
If you can move any part of your body, you can and you do, dance. It’s more about attitude than it is about ability. Happy feet happen at any age—and are not necessarily restricted to your feet. Happy feet, too, is an attitude applied to every physical aspect of your body.
Dancers have “happy feet” when their performance lives up to or exceeds their expectations. When that happens, the dancer attributes it to their body’s leadership in aligning the other elements (spirit, knowledge, muscle memory) to create the awesome, almost an out-of-body experience of beyond perfection into the ephemeral.
For the rest of us the experience of physical, mental and spiritual unity is often described as “being in the zone”, “on the top of your game”, “awesome”. And when that happens, how often do we give credit to the body that brought us to the dance in the first place.
Body Awareness leads to Body Awe…
To achieve the dancer’s edge, follow the dancer’s lead. Begin with awareness of your body: if your body is healthy, then your body supports you. Actions, thoughts, inspirations begin within. As soon as you become aware of your body’s messages, your enhanced awareness provides guidance for your choices.
Awareness of your body guarantees personal and professional success. Listening to your body provides the dancer’s edge when it’s time to make decisions, take the first step, “spot” prior to the spin in your office, your home, anywhere in your life.
The essential elements of success are demonstrated in the Dancer’s Edge: the who, what, where, and why are explained in the article above. The how is up to you…learn to talk to your body, learn to listen to your body, learn to perform at your peak…with perfection!
Body Talk opens the door to the open exchange of information between you and your body. To learn more about the “how”, click www.bodyawe.com.
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